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[
TVOTW Insert -
ABOVE - Abeer's home and the room where she was raped, shot to death
and burned. ]

Bloody
Reality of the U.S. Occupation

14-year-old
Abeer Qassim Hamza lived with her family a few miles north of the Iraqi
town of Mahmoudiya.1 She told her mother that U.S. soldiers would leer
at her and try to make passes at her when she had to pass by the checkpoint
near their house. The soldiers knew where Abeer lived-they had visited
the house. The Washington Post reported in a July 3 article that Abeer's
mother was worried for her child's safety and arranged to have Abeer
sent to a neighbor's house, where she hoped her daughter would be out
of danger.

But
this didn't keep Abeer safe.

According
to an FBI affidavit posted at the website FindLaw.com, four U.S. soldiers
had been planning and talking about what they would do to Abeer. According
to a July 1 Associated Press article, they spent almost a week planning
the assault. On March 12, 2006, these soldiers went drinking and then
changed out of their uniforms into dark clothes. One soldier covered
his face with a t-shirt. In the afternoon, they burst into Abeer's house,
armed with AK-47s.

According
to the affidavit, Steven Green, a private in
the Army, took Abeer's family -- her mother, Fikhriya Taha; her father,
Qassim Hamza; and her 5-year-old sister, Hadeel Qassim Hamza -- into
a bedroom and killed them. He came out, blood on his clothes, bragging
about what he'd just done. Then he and another soldier took turns raping
Abeer. When they were done, they shot and killed her. Then they set
fire to her body.

When
they got back to the checkpoint, with bloody clothes, they told the
soldier guarding the checkpoint to keep his mouth shut. They burned
their clothes, and then went back to manning the checkpoint, where women
and girls passed by every day.

The
July 1 Associated Press article reported that the rape and murders had
been blamed on sectarian infighting between various factions in Iraq.
According to Sydney's Daily Telegraph, the truth began to come out more
than two months later, after two of the soldiers in Green's unit were
killed in an attack and other soldiers said they thought it might have
been in response to the rape and murders in Mahmoudiya.

On
July 3, Steven Green was charged with rape and murder, and could get
the death penalty if convicted. Green is no longer in the military.
Unrelated to the rape and murders, Green had been discharged for what
the military calls a 'personality disorder'"

On
July 9, the Associated Press reported that four other soldiers, all
who are still on active duty, were charged with participating in the
attack, and another was charged with knowing about the attack and failing
to report it. It is not clear if any of those charged were Green's commanding
officers.

The
question is not whether this is the only rape or assault that U.S. soldiers
have committed on Iraqi women or men, or female soldiers in the Army.
The only question is-how many? And how many
have been covered up?

Throughout
the history of the United States, everywhere U.S. soldiers have waged
wars or occupations, or been stationed, local women have been treated
as the victims and spoils of war. From the bloody frontier wars that
began this country, where U.S. soldiers made trophies and souvenirs
from the mutilated body parts of Native American women, to the rings
of brothels and strip clubs surrounding every U.S. overseas base, to
the rapes of women in places like the Philippines, South Korea, and
Japan, where U.S. soldiers are often immune from prosecution by those
country's laws. And this ugly legacy of the
U.S. military is alive and well today in Iraq.

Rape
and sexual assault are not just openly tolerated in the U.S. occupation
of Iraq-they are encouraged.
Look at what happened in Abu Ghraib. Men being forced to masturbate
and pose naked. The rapes and sexual assaults
of women, men, and children. All captured on thousands of
photos depicting smiling soldiers. Soldiers testified that they were
doing these things to "soften up" the prisoners for interrogation.

In
an environment where a woman has every reason not to report a rape,
it is impossible to know how many women have been raped and abused by
U.S. soldiers. Many times women are blamed, shamed and punished for
being raped. Woman who are raped know that they could be accused of
"staining the family honor" and severely punished, even killed,
especially in areas that follow a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
(Sharia, or a strict interpretation of the
Koran, condemns women to death for being raped-for engaging in the crime
of having "sex outside of marriage.")

This
is the fifth time in only two months that the murder of Iraqi civilians
by U.S. troops has come to light.
Reuters news service published a timeline of 18 major incidents in three
years: In March 2006, U.S. soldiers killed eight people, including a
teenage boy, when they raided a home. In February
2006, a U.S. soldier killed an unarmed man in Ramadi and two other soldiers
placed an AK-47 by the body, to make it seem that they had just shot
an "insurgent" (a tactic taken straight from cops in the United
States when they murder people and plant a "throw-down gun.")
National Public Radio reported on June 21 that seven
U.S. soldiers killed a 52-year-old disabled man by dragging him into
a ditch and shooting him, then throwing a shovel and an AK-47 by his
body to make it seem he had been caught in the act of digging a roadside
bomb. (See "Chronology: U.S. troops and civilian complaints
in Iraq").

And
then, once again, even after five incidents reported in two months-the
official chorus comes out like a sick refrain: "These were bad
apples/isolated incidents/aberrations."But these crimes are NOT aberrations.
They are a concentration of and reflect the very nature of the U.S.
military and the U.S. occupation of Iraq: The constant fear of being
killed at a wedding, or when walking down the street, or in your home.
The sickening knowledge that your teenage
daughter is being stalked by armed occupiers. The
fear that you could be shot dead in an instant when driving through
a checkpoint or whenever U.S. troops knock on your door.
The daily humiliation of checkpoints and leering U.S. soldiers.

This
is the nature of the U.S. occupation. And the
unofficial policies of rape and murder are designed to break the spirit
of the Iraqi people. The U.S. is enforcing a hated and brutal
occupation on the people of Iraq. And an indispensable part of this
is inculcating soldiers with a colonial mentality that treats the Iraqi
people as subhuman and considers their lives worth nothing. Rapes,
massacres, and brutal torture are inevitable when you have such a mentality,
encouraged and backed from the highest levels of the military and up
to the White House.

What
does it mean when a senior official in the 4th Infantry Division of
the Army says: "The only thing these sand
niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."
(From Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq,
quoted in Andrew Bacevich's review in the London Review of Books, June
6.) Or take the lyrics of a song called "Haji girl," written
by a U.S. Marine, which celebrates the killing of Iraqis:

"Then
I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little f*ckers to eternity.
They should have known they were f*ckin' with a Marine."

And
what does it mean that Marines in training chant: Blood makes
the grass grow, Marines make the blood flow.

Add
the blood of 14-year-old Abeer. Add her family to the hundred thousand
who have been killed by the U.S. occupation of Iraq. This is the true
nature of the U.S. military.

How
many more Abeers? How many more Abu Ghraibs, Ramadis and Hadithas?

Mafkarat
al-Islam has published a disturbing report on the rape and murder case
in March that the American military have now been compelled to investigate.
The report noted that the number of rapes of Iraqi women committed by
US occupation troops is already legion and continues to climb. Both
Mafkatate Al-Islam and JUS have repeatedly reported that many women
have been victimized within Abu Ghurayb and the other prisons; while
many others have fallen prey to the rapists in American uniform who
prowl the large prison that is occupied Iraq. In addition,
there have be numerous reports that the wives and daughters of Iraqi
women are being used to "soften up" detainees however
this has fallen on deaf ears for the past the three years.

But
there is one case of rape that has come to the surface in recent days,
which stands out for a savagery and brutality
that goes beyond all bounds.

On
an afternoon in March 2006, a force of 10 to 15 American troops raided
the home of Qasim Hamzah Rashid al-Janabi, who was born in 1970 and
who worked as a guard at a state-owned potato storehouse. Al-Janabi
lived with his wife, Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin, and their four children
- 'Abir (born 1991), Hadil (born 1999), Muhammad (1998), and Ahmad (1996).

The
Americans took Qasim, his wife, and their daughter Hadil and put them
in one room of their house. The boys Ahmad and Muhammad were at school
at the time the Americans invaded the home about 2pm. The
Americans shot Qasim, his wife, and their daughter in that room.
They pumped four bullets into Qasim's head and five bullets in to Fakhriyah's
abdomen and lower abdomen. Hadil was shot in
the head and shoulder. [
TVOTW Video Insert - 5 year old girl ]

After
that, the Americans took 'Abir into the next room and surrounded her
in one corner of the house. There they stripped
her, and then the 10 Americans took turns raping her. They
then struck her on the head with a sharp instrument, according to the
forensic medical report, knocking her unconscious and smothered her
with a cushion until she was dead. Then they
set fire to her body.

The
neighbor of the martyred family told the correspondent for Mafkarat
al-Isla the following:

"At
2pm a force of Americans raided the home of the martyr Qasim, God rest
his soul. They surrounded him and I heard the sound of gunfire. Then
the gunfire fell silent. An hour later I saw
clouds of smoke rising from the room and then the occupation troops
came quickly out of the house. They surrounded the area together
with Shi'i 'Iraqi National Guard' forces, and they
told us that terrorists from al-Qa'idah had entered the house and killed
them all. They wouldn't let any of us into the house. But
I told one of the 'National Guard' soldiers that I was their neighbor
and that I wanted to see them so that I could tell al-Hajj Abu al-Qasim
the news about his son and his son's family, so one of the soldiers
agreed to let me enter.

"So
I went into the house and found in the first room the late Qasim and
his wife and Hadil. Their bodies were swimming in blood. Their blood
had spewed out of their bodies with such force that it had flowed out
from under the door of the room. I turned them over but there was no
response; their lives were already gone."

The
neighbor continued his account:

"Then
I went into 'Abir's room. Fire was coming out
of her. Her head and her chest were on fire. She had been
put in a pitiful position; they had lifted her white gown to her neck
and torn her bra. Blood was flowing from between her legs even though
she had died a quarter of an hour earlier, and in spite of the intensity
of the fire in the room. She had died, may God rest her soul. I knew
her from the first instant. I knew she had
been raped since she had been turned on her face and the lower part
of her body was raised while her hands and feet had been tied.

By
God, I couldn't control myself and broke into tears over her,
but I quickly extinguished the fire burning from her head and chest.
The fire had burned up her breasts, the hair on her head, and the flesh
on her face. I covered her privates with a piece of cloth, God rest
her soul. And at that moment, I thought to myself that if I go out talking
and threatening, that they would arrest me, so
I took control of myself and resolved to leave the house calmly so that
I could be a witness to tell the story of this tragedy."

"After
three hours the [American] occupation troops surrounded the house and
told the people of the area that the family had been killed by terrorists
because they were Shi'ah. Nobody in town believed that story because
Abu 'Abir was known as one of the best people of the city, one of the
noblest, and not Shi'i, but a Sunni monotheist. Everyone doubted their
story and so after the sunset prayers the occupation troops took the
four bodies away to the American base. Then
the next day they handed them over to the al-Mahmudiyah government hospital
and told the hospital administration that terrorists had killed the
family. That morning I went with relatives of the deceased
to the hospital. We received the bodies and buried them, may God have
mercy on them."

"Then
we decided that we must not be silent so we asked the mujahideen to
respond as quickly as possible. They responded with 30 attacks on the
occupation in two days, bringing down more than 40 American soldiers.
But our blood was still not cooled, so we decided to go to al-'Arabiyah
satellite TV to tell them the story since it is a station that broadcasts
in Iraq. But al-'Arabiyah paid no attention to us and said we were liars.
They told us that their policy was to rely on official announcements
issued by the American army, and that they were not able to get into
a story over which they had no power. This was told to us by the al-'Arabiyah
correspondent Ahmad as-Salih. So we went to local newspapers and they
slammed the doors in our faces because we are Sunnis and the rape victim
was a Sunni girl. But the Resistance fighters told us that God does
not allow the blood of any Muslim to be lost, and they told us to patiently
persevere and we would see such a punishment for the blood of 'Abir
and her family, for the violation of the honor of our sister, a punishment
that would make people's hair stand on end.

"I
personally wasn't surprised that Umm 'Abir ['Abir's mother] came to
me on 9 March 2006 and asked that 'Abir be allowed to spend the night
with my daughters. She was afraid because of the way the
occupation troops looked at her when she went out to feed the cows.
I agreed to that because there was an occupation forces' command post
just 15 meters from Qasim's house, God rest his soul. But
frankly I thought it unlikely that anything would happen to the girl
because she was only something like 16 and she was just a little girl.
But I agreed and she spent one night at our place and then went back
to her home in the morning. We had no idea
that the occupation troops would carry out their crime in broad daylight.

"The
neighbor concluded: "The occupation troops came last Friday - that
is, one day before the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent visited the scene
of the crime - and asked the people of the area to exhume the body of
'Abir to conduct tests on it. And they also
asked me to provide eyewitness testimony and I will go anywhere to make
sure that justice is served."

Men
rape because they feel entitled to help themselves to a woman's body
and because they think they can get away with it.
Rape can be stopped by making sure that they don't, by women defending
themselves-violently, if necessary.

So
I was taught by a woman who had herself been raped and who humbled me
with her grasp of the painful truths of sexual violence.

I
thought of her when I learned of the evil gang rape of 14-year old Abeer
Qasim Hamza, by infantrymen from the 101st Airborne Division, around
2 pm on March 12, 2006, in her home at Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of
Baghdad.

As
is now widely known, having raped Abeer, these men killed her and set
fire to her body. They
also killed her 5 -year old sister, Hadeel, and their father and mother,
Qassim Hamza and Fikhriya Taha.
A neighbour (Janabi) describes the scene as he walked into Abeer's room:

Fire
was coming out of her. Her head and her chest were on fire.
She had been put in a pitiful position; they had lifted her white gown
to her neck and torn her bra. Blood was flowing from between her legs
even though she had died a quarter of an hour earlier, and in spite
of the intensity of the fire in the room. She had died, may God rest
her soul. I knew her from the first instant. I
knew she had been raped since she had been turned on her face and the
lower part of her body was raised while her hands and feet had been
tied.

The
rape of Abeer is not an aberration. U.S. troops have been killing and
raping Iraq girls and women with impunity since their feet touched Iraq
soil. The only aberration is that we got to
hear about it.

We
got to hear of it because this girl's rape and murder were avenged by
the Mujahadeen, at the request of the family. They tortured and killed
two (and perhaps three) soldiers from the same unit and this prompted
two soldiers in the know to come forward. (Link)

Let
us note that it was the death of Americans that troubled these men,
not the rape and killing of an Iraqi girl and her family by Americans.

The
U.S. military had tried to blame the atrocity on "Sunni Arab insurgents
active in the area".
Such ignorance-these victims were themselves Sunni. How
many American caused atrocities, one wonders, have been blamed by them
on "insurgents".

The
U.S. military is now trying to protect its reputation by blaming this
gang rape-murder on a "bad apple", Steven G. Green, who was
discharged in May, we are told, because of an "anti-social personality
disorder". He and four other soldiers have been charged with one
count of rape and four counts of murder. (Link)

Leaving
aside the fact that the entire world can see plainly enough that the
problem is not a bad apple, it's the entire rotten orchard, just how
one would go about detecting "anti-social personality disorder"
among the bloody carnage in Iraq is anyone's guess.

The
USA itself, considered as an "imagined community" manifests
all the characteristics of anti-social personality disorder. Consider:

·
it lacks empathy for the suffering of others
· it fails to conform to social norms with respect to lawful
behaviours
· it is deceitful, as indicated by repeated lying
· it is violent and aggressive
· it lacks remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing
having hurt, mistreated, or stolen others.

The
USA thinks it is entitled to invade and plunder an innocent country,
rape and murder its people, and get away with it.

The
rape of Abeer, the rape of Iraq. The part contains the whole. An American
soldier imposes his will on an Iraqi girl. The American military imposes
its will on Iraq society. Both acts are
motivated by the same wretched morality which bestows the same feeling
of entitlement.

Steven
Green is no "bad apple". He's typical fruit of a bad society,
one morally indifferent to what is being done in its name in Iraq.

Nor
should he be made a scapegoat. War brutalises both sides to a conflict,
albeit in different ways. Every man knows that he is capable of rape-in
certain circumstances. When armed young men know they can both die tomorrow
and act with impunity they are liable to rape.

This
excuses them not at all. It extends responsibility
to those who placed them in that hellish situation in Iraq.

If
the five soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are guilty of this
crime, so too is the entire chain of command,
all the way up to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Bush.

The
U.N. is also complicit, for authorizing immunity from prosecution of
American forces in Iraq, in the form of Security Council Resolution
1546.

American
soldiers have been terrorizing Iraqi women from the outset. They routinely
take them hostage in exchange for their husbands, brothers and sons.
They are "disappeared" into unknown
prisons where they are sexually assaulted and tortured.

These
same soldiers have removed women's protection by the Iraq state by shattering
it into militia-run fiefdoms. As Haifa Zangana argues, this has transformed
all of Iraq into Abu Ghraib, "with our
streets as prison corridors and homes as cells" Link.

Before
the Anglo-American invasion, women had enviable rights under the Constitution.
Rape was a capital offence. Now many women are afraid to leave their
homes because of fear of abduction and rape.

Rape
dishonours, humiliates and shames. Because of this it also silences.

Abeer's
death certificate makes no mention of rape because it is a taboo subject
in Iraq.
"Families don't report rapes here, they avenge them." (Link)

In
this context, presumably, vengeance is less attractive to a vulnerable
girl or woman than prevention. In any event, whose tarnished honour,
women's or their own, do men avenge?

What
good does avenging a rape do its victim, dead or alive? What good does
the US military investigating itself do a raped woman? What
good is relying on the law for protection when rapists are beyond the
law?

When
you live under an occupying force that rapes and murders with impunity,
when the "international community"
looks the other way while your country is gang-raped, when
the best your Prime Minister can do is bleat for an independent investigation,
when the best your men-folk can do is avenge whatever might befall you.

This
situation can go on without end. Women cannot afford to wait for an
end to occupation. When there is no law, women are entitled to take
it into their own hands.

In
these circumstances, the best tactic women could adopt to prevent rapes,
abductions and murders is to establish consequences by defending themselves
violently.

They
should arm themselves and kill those-American or Iraqi-who attempt to
harm them, or their children, brothers and sisters.

When
the risk involved in attacking women is greater, there will be fewer
attacks on them.

The
unimaginable terror felt by Abeer Qasim Hamza, by all accounts a beautiful
child, warrants action. No more words.

Withdrawal?
No. The power and morality embodied by the gang-rape of Abeer by American
soldiers should not be allowed to survive.

(In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes.)

______________________________________________

THE
FOUNDATION, INSPIRATION, EMPATHY AND SPIRIT
WITH WHICH TVOTW WAS CONCEIVED AND BUILT UPON
RESIDES WITH THE FOLLOWING EVERLASTING PRINCIPLE

- "LOVE CONQUERS ALL THINGS" -

______________________________________________

"IF
YOU WANT OTHERS TO BE HAPPY, PRACTICE COMPASSION. IF YOU WANT TO BE
HAPPY, PRACTICE COMPASSION."

- DALAI LAMA -

______________________________________________

"YOU
NEVER KNOW WHAT THE OUTCOME IS - BUT THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS THE BEST PLACE
TO START"

- JULIAN ASSANGE -

______________________________________________

-
FAMOUS QUOTE -

"Human
beings are the only creatures on earth that claim a God - and the only
living thing that behaves like it hasn't got one."